Motion Sensor hack for better outdoor alerts

Just because I “never paid for it in the first place”, doesn’t mean it wasn’t included in the price. At the minimum it used as a marketing feature to sell the product.

If you purchased the Wyze Cam after they announced the feature, it clearly was paid for. At the minimum it was a marketing feature.

I’m not saying it’s Wyze’s fault, I’m saying Wyze is working on a lot of other new products and “features” when they should be placing more emphasis on what was originally sold as a feature.

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Can everyone please stop spamming this thread? [Mod Edit]

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Some posts were edited that did not follow the Community Guidelines, specifically the following sections. Please flag posts that violate the guidelines so the moderators can respond appropriately.

Always Be Civil

Somtimes We Disagree

To each his own as the saying goes. I disagree with your conclusion but it’s a matter of opinion. Be safe and stay healthy!

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Yeah, we never had that when I got my first Wyze Cams all those years ago. Looking forward to seeing the next iteration of Wyze person detection :eyeglasses:

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Sound like a good execution. I’ve had Wyze Cam Pans outside the house for about two years now. Dealt with the same issue but I played with the sensitivity and adjusted the fixed area I wanted it to monitor. If you replaced the current Cam with the Cam Pan, you’d solve your gaffer tape issue. Just make sure the camera is not exposed to rain or substantial sunlight.

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Amazing that some ppl are just hell bent on spamming a topic to make their own point.

Anyway, good post @bdragule. Very useful suggestion. I have the same problem you stated. As good as person detection is getting now, I’m thinking of finding another use for the motion sensor and your suggestion will be good to remember. Wonder if a neat way to reduce the entire viewing cone of the sensor?

At the price point of the sensors I am honestly not that worried over tape residue. Personally I found that experimenting with tape, then replacing the tape with Acrylic paint or fingernail paint worked really well. I have a sensor outside that I used that approach to narrow the FOV down with and another inside that I did something similar with.

Using diluted polish remover took the paint off and left no residue and did not harm the sensor.

Perhaps it a bit too late now but did you try adjusting the camera’s Detection settings?
At first, my camera was picking up my flag attached to the roof post until I found that I could adjust, resize and set a suitable detection area. No more Flag, Street motion, people walking dogs, etc. just my front sidewalk and steps.
I do like your motion detector setup.
Best,
Artimus

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I did not try that, but I’ll also give it a shot.

  1. I wasn’t sure, based on available documentation, how reducing the sensitivity works on the camera software… does it look for longer continuous motion, larger areas of motion, etc? How does it ACTUALLY decrease the sensitivity?

  2. The camera’s field of view is wide enough to cover the sidewalk and street (which I actually want) however the motion I’m interested in is only on my walkway up to my door. I’m not convinced that a linear slider setting would know to screen out passing cars (which are larger and arguably cause more motion) and people walking on the sidewalk while leaving the people only walking on my walkway in the detection sensitivity.

Nest’s solution was the ability to draw several polygonal shapes in the areas you’re interested in, which worked well enough. However Wyze just gives you a rectangle which doesn’t exactly work for this camera angle.

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I’ve had a couple of lights that were not compatible with IFTTT. found a routine on Alexa app that basically lets me integrate almost any device like the motion sensor to other devices. My Lightify bulbs comes on when motion is detected on WYZE PIR and goes off when motion is cleared. Time for Google and IFTTT to step up to the game.

Alan, is this the hill you want to die on??? Some arguments are just not worth the time and effort… People seem to forget how little they paid for this technology… Give it time. Karma my man, KARMA

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I did indeed try adjusting the cameras sensitivity. Because the camera uses pixel change to determine movement there was no way, even at the lowest setting, to avoid wind blown foliage from triggering a movement event. By the way this is one of the reasons the cameras are not meant for outdoor use.

Using a PIR detector helps avoid wind based false detection. Since I have switched to the PIR sensor I have had much better results.

Ok ok.

Back to the topic.

Gaffer tape, Motion sensor.

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My person detection was less than ready for use in its performance. Wyze will get that prefected eventually, but the one we had might as well not have been there. Mine reported shadows, dogs, cars, and the occasional person and a person. No complaints because that feature was not what I bought Wyze for, if fact it wasn’t available when I bought in.

Even better than rubbing alcohol for removing glue…WD-40

BONUS!!! and it’ll keep the trusty eyeball lubed up,( at least on a Pan):grinning:

As far as I remember during my set up you can set a rectangle up to indicate the area you was to track motion on. And set the sensitivity mode.

Brilliant!

Any help for the sensitivity in the wyze cam? When my motion sensor light kicks it it triggers the wyze cam as motion…I have it in a window facing outdoors and it is forever picking up “false movement”